posted 03-29-2005 06:54 PM         

Hopefully by tommorrow I will have a Pre_Release ready.

If you are interested, please email me at:

chrisboss@naxs.net

I may limit the number of Pre-release versions I make available though, so act quickly.

The Release version will be EZGUI 4.0 !

Also I am considering a price increase on EZGUI 3.5/4.0.

I would like to continue to sell EZGUI 3.0 (its price may be decreased after 4.0 has been released for awhile) as a medium end tool.

EZGUI 4.0 may be renamed, EZGUI 4.0 Enterprise version and sell for somewhere around $249. This depends a lot upon the market though. (upgrade from 3.0 to 4.0 would likely be about $169.

EZGUI 3.5/4.0 will support third party controls in the designer, so this may open up the possibility of my adding some new controls as add-ons (after 3.5/4.0).

I also may rework some earlier versions to make a low end product as well.

Any comments ?

posted 03-30-2005 07:25 AM         

Actually my idea for a lite version was to take the EZGUI 3.5 engine (has all the bug fixes) and to remove certain features to make it compatible with previous versions (ie. 2.0 to 3.0) by removing features.

Also the Visual Designer actually doesn't use the entire EZGUI 3.0 command set so the newer designer could be used with a previous version so they would benefit from the new features of the designer.

posted 03-30-2005 07:35 AM         

The concept of an engine has not been the most popular idea among PB'ers so it has been hard to get a significant percentage of the PB market. I have a good customer base and it is growing, but I have to make sure that I make enough money from EZGUI to maintain its development for a long time.

Also now with tools like FireFly and Phoenix available there is more competition for EZGUI (and they don't use runtimes).

Every sale I make I have to work hard for (to prove that an engine is far more reliable and powerful in the long run).

Amazingly, when PB 8.0 was released, while I was expecting sales to drop for awhile, it was one of my best month of sales (not sure why).

As far as price, you have to remember that a significant number of sales of new versions are upgrades where I make only about 65% of the selling price rather than the full 100% price.

Interestingly, when I have offered EZGUI on a sale (say 20% off), the number of new sales has only been minimal.

Customers are often buying EZGUI , not because of price but for many other reasons.

Also remember that even if the price goes up, I can offer periodic sales for the benefit of those who consider price important.

posted 03-30-2005 01:33 PM         

With respect to the pricing of EZGUI 4, I believe those of us
who already use and enjoy the extraordinary benefits of EZGUI
would support an upgrade price of whatever Chris felt was needed
to make it viable to him. If it's to be $169 then gees, I recouped
THAT amount in the time saved on my very first EZGUI project! Not
only that, but it was EZGUI that FINALLY made it possible for me
to make the transition to "real" Windows programming. The value
to me? Priceless!

In terms of NEW sales, Steven pointed out that it's a niche market
(essentially a subset of the PBWin market) we're dealing with. As
such, I believe it represents a relatively small user base (compared
to VB and other languages) that is already confronted with several
choices when it comes to tools that will enhance and increase their
productivity when using PBWin.

Reflecting back on my own initial experience with EZGUI and thinking
about the potential for "low", "medium" and "high" end versions, one
word comes to mind. CONFUSED! Having used EZGUI for a while, I can
now comprehend the differences but initially (if I were visiting here
for the first time?) What's Low? Medium? High? What do *I* need?
... and why? My gut says "top-of-the-line" but would I spend say $249
to try it having no experience with EZGUI at all? Probably not. $199
was a stretch for me at the time and a GAMBLE that it would help me
move into "Windows". Obviously it did AND was INDEED a WISE investment!

I (like you) want Chris to be able to continue developing and supporting
EZGUI for a long, long time to come. But, realistically, that requires
SALES ... particularly NEW sales. So, I'm wondering, might there be a
way that WE could help?

What comes to mind is something like, for example, each of us might
contribute a SMALL, HEAVILY COMMENTED, program developed with a FREE
version of EZGUI (v2.01 Lite? ...or perhaps a version designated by
Chris) that could serve as the STARTING point for those brand new to
EZGUI. We all have our own areas of expertise so it might be a way to
show the power and diversity of EZGUI to someone looking at it for the
first time.

The examples provided with EZGUI and sample code available here are
good BUT ... for someone new to EZGUI, it's still difficult to get a
solid handle on things. Once they've seen (and been able to follow the
source code comments) they should immediately see just how EZ and
valuable EZGUI could be to THEM.

Anyway, if $169 is the final upgrade price that Chris decides to charge,
I'm "onboard" and think it represents REAL value for the money.

posted 03-30-2005 02:28 PM         

Create a Freeware version of EZGUI which has a Designer similiar to 3.0/3.5/4.0, but has a runtime engine which only has a rudementary command set.

The runtime DLL would be much, much smaller and many quick utilities could be built with it. It would also given new customers a feel for coding with EZGUI.

Would that be better than a low end version ?

posted 03-30-2005 03:24 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chris Boss:

The concept of an engine has not been the most popular idea among PB'ers so it has been hard to get a significant percentage of the PB market.

---

I think it takes a while to figure out just how cool an engine is. I came from VB, then macros in office programs. I am more of a hobbyist and a power user than a developer, but it took a long time to figure out how to think like a UI engine, as opposed to a visual designer. I'm starting to and getting some really neat results. I recently wrote a program switchboard that reads a file and build a form as a switchboard from which to run programs. It provides info on the programs, runs them, and tells how many times you have run them. This is all done in a few tens of lines of code. And the result is a 17k executable. I can't imagine an easier or more efficient way to do this kind of program. It does take a while to learn to think in that way and appreciate how easy it is to do effective things. I am now writing a little debug form that makes it easy to set inputs, and outputs and run separate routines while I am testing a program. Again, very easy to build with ezgui. The key for me was to understand how your program wants to work, not what I know. It turns out to be very easy to work with.

quote:

---

Also now with tools like FireFly and Phoenix available there is more competition for EZGUI (and they don't use runtimes).

---

I think they can make your point as well. They fit one mode of operation, your's another. I couldn't imagine making the switchboard or my little procedure explorer form with Firefly. EZGUI is, well, easy.

quote:

---

Amazingly, when PB 8.0 was released, while I was expecting sales to drop for awhile, it was one of my best month of sales (not sure why).

---

My suspicion is that the upgrade created focus on powerbasic, and thus on the add on tools as well. (That thought and 5 bucks will get you coffee at Starbucks, sometimes.)

quote:

---

Customers are often buying EZGUI , not because of price but for many other reasons.

---

I suspect there is some sort of threshold here. At some point, people would really stop buying. I know I would. But the dollars aren't there yet.

On another topic, regarding the versioning, I would think you would like to have all your products at one level (say 4.0) but then different versions of each, for low, midrange and professional/enterprise users. It just communicates to me the segmentation I think you are trying to communicate.

P.S. on yet another topic. I agree that the property list box would probably be worth the price of the entire upgrade. Would it be possible to have a file open dialog tied to it? That seems to be a common property.

posted 03-30-2005 04:05 PM         

The Property Listbox in EZGUI 3.5 does exactly what you requested !

There are 6 different types of items in a Property ListBox:

Catagory Item - Displays a full width catagory Title with a 3D Gradient background

Text Item - Displays a text item which can be edited (edit control displays automatically)

Numeric Text Item - Same as Text but for numbers

Color Item - Displays a Color and a Button. Click the button and the Color Dialog appears.

Filename Item - Displays a Filename and a button. Click the button and the Open File Dialog appears.

DropDown Item - Displays a ComboBox with a drop down list of items.

posted 03-30-2005 04:29 PM         

A couple of thoughts from the least qualified of your responders:

a) I believe a freebie version would hurt sales. It would probably be attractive only to experienced hands, and when they see it's limitations they won't be interested in spending more time on it.

b) I think the name change you mention suggests large scale network applications, even wide area networked apps. A better choice would be to emphasize some key feature in the upgrade like: EZGUI 4 - With Controls, or EZGUI 4 - Multi-Forms

Good luck whatever you decide.

posted 03-30-2005 04:32 PM         

One think I would like to see is a DDT designer using the EZGUI 3.x or 4.x visual designer front end. I have never been able to get a good grasp on the whole DDT thing, but if the designer generated the skeleton code, that would be educational on my part. Also, it would eliminate the runtime that some people have a problem with. I have played around with the existing Freeware DDT desinger, but as I recall, the designer was based on EZGUI 1.0 and after being spoiled with EZGUI 3.0 designer features, it is hard to go backwards.

posted 03-30-2005 04:39 PM         

The EZGUI 3.5 Pre-Release upgrade order form is set up. Those who emailed me, I have sent the url for the order form.

The price for EZGUI 4.0 (3.5 will end up being 4.0) will be $249.00 (US).

The upgrade price (and pre-release) will be $159.00 (US).

Why the price increase ?

Yes, I took your suggestions very seriously !

I decided to examine the sales records for EZGUI 1.0 through 3.0. Each version increased in price (1.0 was $99, 2.0 was $159, 3.0 is $199). I examined the number of new customers and the number of upgrades.

My impression of the numbers is that those who truly needed EZGUI, price was not the key factor. When EZGUI was lower in price, I found some customers simply purchased it out of curiosity and then didn't use it. This makes for a poor customer since they likely won't upgrade and they don't encourage others to use it. The best customers turned out to be the long time users who really depended upon the product. They are also the best advertising !

One of the key factors about EZGUI has been that I have continued to add new controls (both common controls not previously supported) and custom controls. VB programmers often would spend hundreds of dollars on a single ActiveX control and EZGUI gives you new controls with each new version. This saves you a lot of money because you don't have to look for other third party tools to solve many problems.

The new Property ListBox alone is definitely worth the upgrade !

The new features in the RichEdit control also open up some exciting possibilities. The new Link features will allow you to create real Hypertext applications (ie. like Windows Help).

The Pager and Rebar controls are very powerful in EZGUI 3.5 since they use Forms as their children. This means it will be easy to create all sorts of exciting GUI's using these two controls.

I have also improved the Custom Draw engine to allow more customization of common controls.

The Visual Designer (not complete yet) has some new features as well. During the Pre-release period I will be working on finishing the Designer. I have already added three new features:

(1) You can select multiple controls and double click one to display the Properties Dialog. Now you can set properties for multiple controls at one time.

(2) I have implimented a new component model so you can use real third party controls like EGrid and Sigrid within the designer (I just need to add the code generation and it will be done). During the prerelease period this will be fine tuned to support as many third party controls as possible.

(3) I am working on the ability to insert code directly within the designer using any code editor you prefer. Both the PB IDE and JellyFish will work as well as others. It is still in development but again during the prerelease period it will be refined (as well as new code generation) so you can have the best of both worlds. Visually Design your apps in the EZGUI designer and edit code using your favorite code editor and have it embeded in the FMZ form files.

The key benefits of the Pre-Release will be all the new features in the GUI Engine and there are many.

The new EZ_SetAttr and EZ_GetAttr commands alone encapsulate over 140 API control messages in a simple easy to use format.

The Canvas and Turtle controls now supports Regions so you can make them act as if they had a transparent background. In essence you can use them like they were sprites (non-rectangular images).

The ToolTip supports has been significantly improved. Now you can define tooltips for more controls and have greater control in how the tooltips look. You can define their colors and size. They support many more characters now (up to 1024 characters) and multilines.

Lastly, you get the best tech support around since I plan to continue the high quality of tech support you are all use to. My goal is to solve as many of your programming problems as possible.

Few, if any, of the other tool developers offer the quality of tech support which I currently offer. I don't just naswer questions, but often I will spend valuable time experimenting with code to see if I can find a solution to my customers problems, even if I have to do research in the API to find it. This will continue !

Now for those who may wonder how some with limited funds can afford EZGUI 4.0, I will likely offer sales when it seems practical to do so. I offered sales on EZGUI 2.0 as well as 3.0. Interestingly, when I offered sales before, it did not flood me huge numbers of sales. It simply picked up just a few customers who were just out of reach in buying EZGUI.

Also the ones who can't afford EZGUI, likely are the ones who don't really need it that bad (ie. hobbiest programmers). Programmers who it use it commercially can easily justify the cost. For those who may be hobbiests, I might simply create simpler versions with less features that satisfy their needs. The key is to find out what hobbiests need most and given then that.

posted 03-30-2005 07:16 PM         

There is already a new forum for discussing EZGUI 3.5 !

Once your order is received, I will give you access to the forum (no password needed).

posted 03-31-2005 06:30 AM         

Can't really say what would be the best way to attract new EZGUI users. When I think back of how I got 'hooked' to EZGUI, well, after I bought my first PB compiler, I was looking first for some sort of visual Designer. Didn't want to design my forms by hand by entering coordinates for the DDT commands. PBForms wasn't born then and the existing freeware designers I found at that time were all missing 'something'. Then I found and used the EZGUI (DDT) freeware designers. This was a major leap ahead for a beginning PB user. I could now easily create new forms in a visual way.
After a while, having decided that I wanted to stick with PB, I wanted to reduce the time that I was spending searching and studying of 'how to do things in Windows'.
Meanwhile I had heared about the EZGUI engine (apart from the freeware designers) making PB life a bit easier.
At around the same time I bought EZGUI 2.0 and Edwin Knopperts VD (now called PowerDev).
While VD was/is a nice tool I still had to revert to the inner guts of Windows to get some things working.
The main reason at that time why I also bought EZGUI was that it basically covered every aspect of Windows that I was likely to ever get in thouch with: using controls, subclassing, printing, graphics, icons/pictures, using tabs, toolbars, ownerdrawing, etc. So I figured EZGUI could make my programming life a lot easier by saving me time and frustration not having to deal with the Windows API peculiarities.
And I figured right! EZGUI does make programming Windows a whole lot easier !! So, I never regretted for one minute having bought EZGUI. Also, since the support is fantastic!

To make the story complete I will also mention what made me hesitate at first before buying EZGUI.
For one, it was the fact that I had to spend another xxx $ after having bought the compiler. I believe EZGUI was the most expensive of all the PB tools at that time (comparing apples with oranges of course..).
Secondly, I would have to spend an unknown (but looking back at it, very short) period of time to learn to master EZGUI. And this while I was uncertain at that time whether or not EZGUI was here to stay, being a one man operation and all... Meanwhile, I am convinced that Chris takes EZGUI very seriously and that he will continue to support and improve it. Just let us hope that he will never get hit by a train..
There was also the aspect of requiring a runtime dll, but this was never a big issue for me and it never has bothered me.

Meanwhile, there are a few competing products on the market, like Firefly and Phoenix. Although these are no doubt very good products, I believe they are all using the SDK style of code, which does not appeal to me, getting confronted with the API again. So I confess that I have not even tried them.

So, to summarize, how I got an EZGUI customer was firstly through the EZGUI freeware desgners. Then learning about the EZGUI engine, mainly through the PB and EZGUI forums.

Kind regards

------------------
Eddy
raimundo4u at yahoo dot com